But has Microsoft's search engine
really advanced enough to pose a credible threat to Google? While
you can test the comparison on your own at BingitOn.com, I've identified strengths
and weaknesses for both. Either engine may have an edge
depending on your personal preferences.

From social integration to speed to quality, here's a look at how
they stack up:

Google advantage: Provides more relevant
information.
While Bing's recent changes make it a more viable
search option, it's still lacking in terms of result quality
in response to informative queries.

In this case, I tested the phrase, "income tax rates." While the
Google search engine results page (SERP) displayed information on
both 2012 and 2013 tax rates in the first five listings, the only
dated information found in Bing's results was a single listing
mentioning 2011 tax rates.

Bing advantage: Social integrations are
stronger.
Bing's results win in terms of the smoothness of its social
integrations. The company's contracts with both Facebook and
Twitter give it access to more social data than Google, which
must rely on the lesser-used Google+ network. The way it
integrates social recommendations into its SERPs is also much
less cluttered than Google's results.

To measure this, I began entering the sample query, "latest
Packers score" into both engines. Google provided this as a
possible query result after only "latest Pack," while Bing
required the full "latest Packers s" to turn up the same result.

Bing advantage: Results pages are more
attractive.
Bing's search results pages have a certain visual appeal. And it
appears that there are plenty of people who agree.

In many ways, Bing's results look like Google's used to, before
Google cluttered its listings with "+1" buttons, social
annotations and other useless features.

Google advantage: Connected products provide more
background information.
If you use any of Google's other products -- such as Google
Reader or Google+ -- the search giant already has a wealth of
information available to understand you and tailor its results to
the listings that are most likely to be of value to you. While
Bing offers similar products -- such as Bing Reader -- they
aren't nearly as widely adopted as Google's offerings, meaning
that Bing's internal integrations aren't likely to influence the
company's SERP results for many users.

In this case, because I'm subscribed to SEO and social monitoring
service SEOMoz in my Google Reader account, I was more likely to
see posts from SEOMoz contributing authors appear in my Google
query results than in Bing's listings. To me, this adds value by
increasing the likelihood that results will appear from authors I
know and trust.

Bottom line: Everyone's search engine use comes
down to personal preference. For me, I'm sticking with Google
until Bing is able to claim a much greater advantage over the
web's largest, most preferred search engine.

Which do you think is the more effective search
engine? Google or Bing? Let us know in the comments
below.